removing the complexity from financial planning

Financial Approach

I am a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional who acts as a fiduciary for my clients. As a fiduciary, I have a legal obligation to act in the best interest of my clients.

At Bobb Financial, our process can be broken down into the following steps:

Getting to know each other

Analysis

Recommendations

Monitoring your plan.

There are a number of details involved in the process such as getting organized, investment analysis, tax planning, estate planning and more.

If you are anything like me, it won’t do any good to receive a thirty page book or stack of papers with your recommendations. In order to simplify things, I provide a one page action plan to my clients. The one page plans are always backed by many pages of data for clients that are more detail oriented.

How Will We Work Together?

This depends on the person. Some of my clients prefer in person meetings. Others prefer email and phone calls, yet other clients prefer videoconference.

We provide a secure method of transferring data to each other. We also give clients a login and website, or a phone app to stay up to date on their accounts.

What does it mean to provide fee only advice? It simply means that I am never paid a commission. I am compensated by my clients only.

If an advisor makes recommendations and gets paid a commission when the money is deployed, how can you be sure that these recommendations are in your best interest?

This can be a very difficult process for consumers, which is one of the biggest reasons I have chosen to be a fee-only advisor. The reason is very simple - an advisor has no incentive to make recommendations that aren’t in the client’s best interest.

Fee-only means NO COMMISSIONS, NO HIDDEN FEES, and NO CONFLICTS OF INTEREST.

A college funding plan can help remove the stress from the college planning process

Services

Financial planning is the foundation of what we do at Bobb Financial. While we offer other services, this is where we feel we can provide the most value. Comprehensive financial planning involves a process of looking at a person's entire financial picture.

We do one time financial plans, as well as ongoing financial planning which can be broken down to a monthly or quarterly fee.

Our financial planning process includes:

Goal setting

Cash management

Debt analysis

Investment analysis and management

Income tax planning

Estate planning

College funding

Insurance analysis

Retirement planning

Employee benefit analysis

Charitable gifting

Business continuation

We do ongoing financial planning, as well as one time financial plans.

We view financial planning as an ongoing, ever changing process. A plan can be out of date a few months after it is implemented. Events like a marriage, divorce, job change, having kids, losing a loved one, or a disability can all have a significant impact on your plan. The list of events that can alter your life are endless, not to mention changes in your "wants and needs" as you go through life.

Our belief is that we can provide tremendous value to our clients by managing their assets. We do three things in the investment management process that our clients are not able to do.

Make investment decisions without involving emotion

Save time for our clients by allowing them to focus on what is important to them while we manage their money

Leverage professional caliber investment strategies that are backed by decades of research

If you are looking for stock pickers - we aren't the right fit for you. If you are looking for tested strategies backed by sound research, then we should talk.

Schedule a introductory call below if you would like to have a discussion regarding investment management.

How will you pay for college? Most families we work with want to help their kids pay for college, but how? A big problem arises when you are trying to pay for your kid's education yet still save for retirement.

We help families develop a college funding plan that won't rob mom and dad's retirement. There are many factors that can help reduce the cost of college, here are a few of them:

Maximizing financial aid

Smart school selection

Tax credits and other tax strategies

Smart loan strategies

Efficient use of personal resources

Appealing financial aid offers

Preparing to pay for college and making good decisions in the process can help families save money on the cost of college and reduce stress.

College planning is an included service for our comprehensive planning clients.

Who We Serve

One thing that I always want to do at Bobb Financial is enjoy my client relationships. Even though we serve a variety of clients across all age groups, one quality our clients share is that they are good people we enjoy working with.

We have found that both parties need to enjoy the relationship for it to be a good long term fit.

If you fit the above qualities then we would love to talk and see if we are a good fit.

Or, you may be overwhelmed by the slew of acronyms that are part of your benefits such as CSRS, FERS, FEHB, TSP, FEGLI, FEHB, VCP.

Your financial well-being and retirement are too important for confusion to be part of the equation.

I have received professional training on federal employee benefits and have been working extensively with federal employees since 2007. As a federal benefits specialist, I have done presentations at FSA, Rural Development, BOP, SSA, ATF, FBI, OSHA, US Marshals, ARS and the EPA, to name a few.

Whether you are part of the old CSRS system or FERS, I can help you interpret the maze of federal acronyms and assist you along your retirement journey. A typical start to that journey involves putting a plan together that shows you how your benefits will work together to provide a retirement cash flow.

Click here to see how we have helped federal employee clients with their finances.

Doctors

Young medical professionals face an uphill battle after graduating residency. Whether you are a young doctor or dentist you most likely have significant student loan debt and shortened savings period. How you handle financial decisions will have a significant impact on your working life and retirement.

Even work benefit packages for physicians are difficult. And when it comes to disability insurance it gets more complicated.

One issue medical professionals face is a lack of time. Most doctors that I know still work at least fifty hours a week. It can become increasingly difficult to balance a full work load and fulfill family obligations as well, not to mention finding time for hobbies.

At Bobb Financial we enjoy taking care of the financial side of things so that our clients can spend more time doing what is important to them.

Our preferred method of working with medical professionals is a flat fee arrangement.

College Bound Families

Sending a kid to college for the first time is a daunting task, not only psychologically but financially. We help our college bound families through the entire process from establishing a school list to paying for the last semester.

You can find more details about our college planning in our services tab. If you would like to see how we can help you can schedule a call below.

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Blog

Servicing clients objectively and independently

About

I, Brad Bobb, am the sole owner of Bobb Financial Incorporated

My journey started at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where I graduated with a degree in Business Finance. After graduating, I went to work for Country Insurance and Financial Services as an insurance agent and financial advisor. I have also had the opportunity to work for a large regional bank as a financial consultant. While working for these large companies, I realized that the corporate world may not be the best fit for me. Each of the companies I worked for placed heavy emphasis on product sales and sales benchmarks. Even though I met all of my sales goals and contests, I started to think there was a better way to serve my clients. Enter Bobb Financial. In 2007, I opened up my own practice, Bobb Financial. I believe that being objective is the only way to serve my clients, and the best way to do that is by being independent.

One commitment I make to my clients is to always be learning. Many parts of financial planning are constantly changing, and I take it upon myself to further my education annually. In 2016, I obtained my CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designation. The CFP® is widely recognized in the industry as the top designation for financial planners. The CFP® curriculum involves all areas of financial planning and CFP® registrants are obligated to act as a fiduciary for their clients.

My goal is to establish long term relationships with all of my clients, so if you are considering becoming a client, you should probably know a little more about me.

My Christian faith is my foundation. I am eternally grateful for what Jesus did on the cross for me. I do my best to share his grace with others in everything I do.

Outside of work, I really enjoy spending time with my family, working out or playing sports, and enjoying the outdoors. My wife, Lynette, works part time as a pediatric and NICU nurse. She also does some administrative work at Bobb Financial. We have been blessed with three wonderful kids, who are both loads of fun and challenging at the same time! It seems like we are busier every year as our kids get older and become involved in more activities.

I love fitness, whether that involves playing sports, watching sports, or working out. Our family does our best to stay active by having family workouts, doing the burpee challenge or playing sports any chance we can. While most people in the Midwest do not enjoy winter much, we (my wife may have a slight argument here) love it! I prefer to take vacations in the winter in search of snow. Even though we only get to go once or twice a year, we love it when we get the chance to snow ski or snowmobile.

Frequently Answered Questions

Q - I'm not a federal employee, doctor, or in the market for college planning. Am I a good fit for Bobb Financial?

A - Maybe. I work with people across all industries. I want to work with good people who value my advice! This is the most important quality I look for in client relationships.

Q - I don't have any assets to manage, can you help me?

A - Yes. Planning isn't just for asset management but also cash flow, savings goals, and debt management.

Q - Why did you make the decision to go the fee-only route?

A - This is something that I contemplated for a long time, and ultimately came down to me deciding fee-only is the best way to do business from a client trust perspective. There has been a lot of abusive sales practices in the financial industry, most of which revolve around selling products for high commissions. Fee-only eliminates those conflicts of interest.

Q - How do you get paid?

A - I get paid one of two ways, either by a fee of the assets I manage or a flat fee for advice. You will always know ahead of time what the fee for planning will be, or at least a very close estimate. NO COMMISSIONS AND NO HIDDEN FEES

Q - Do you believe everyone needs a plan?

A - The short answer to this questions is yes. For some people a plan may be very simple, yet for others it could be very complex, but I believe having a plan is the best way to reach a goal.

Q - What if I'm not happy about your service?

A - Great question that I hope doesn't happen! But if it does, we can part ways with no fees or penalties.

Bobb Financial Incorporated (BF) is a registered investment adviser offering advisory services in the State(s) of Illinois and in other jurisdictions where exempted. Investment Advisor Representative, RDA Financial Network, a Registered Investment Advisor. The presence of this website on the Internet shall not be directly or indirectly interpreted as a solicitation of investment advisory services to persons of another jurisdiction unless otherwise permitted by statute. Follow-up or individualized responses to consumers in a particular state by BF in the rendering of personalized investment advice for compensation shall not be made without our first complying with jurisdiction requirements or pursuant an applicable state exemption.

All written content on this site is for information purposes only. Opinions expressed herein are solely those of BF, unless otherwise specifically cited. Material presented is believed to be from reliable sources and no representations are made by our firm as to another parties’ informational accuracy or completeness. All information or ideas provided should be discussed in detail with an advisor, accountant or legal counsel prior to implementation.

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